Kinglet (nuclear primary)


Kinglet was a boosted fission primary used in several American thermonuclear weapons.
The W55 warhead for the UUM-44 SUBROC anti-submarine missile and the W58 warhead for Polaris A-3 were designed to use Kinglet, while the W47 warhead for Polaris A-1/A-2 were retrofitted with Kinglet to overcome the technical issues with the Robin primary the W47 was initially deployed with. Allegedly, only the W47Y2 was converted to the Mod 3 design using Kinglet.

Design

The Kinglet device was approximately in diameter, in length and weighed approximately.
The device was of the two-point design. Two-point devices only require two detonators to fire the whole device, compared to earlier nuclear weapons that required tens of detonators.
Characteristics of the warheads that used Kinglet are:
WarheadMax YieldDiameterLengthWeight
W47Y2 Mod 3
W55
W58